nathansgenealogyfandomcom-20200213-history
OLD THOMAS WAITE, THE WANBOROUGH NONAGENARIAN
Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette 23 February 1888 SIFTINGS FROM THE NOTE BOOK OF A JOURNALIST OLD THOMAS WAITE, THE WANBOROUGH NONAGENARIAN Externally, Waite’s cottage differed in no material respect from the general run of old cottages in our villages. When asking to be directed to it, I was told it was a little house by the side of a big one. I found the ”big” house, however, to be an ordinary labourer’s cottage but, somewhat recently built with brick and covered with slate. Waite's cottage was built many years ago of stone and covered with thatch, having in the front a garden patch of a few square yards in extent. Internally there are but few things to notice, but the general appearance produces a favourable impression, the room being remarkable for its clean and tidy condition, notwithstanding that cleanliness and tidiness in such circumstances would seem to be a physical impossibility. But for a slight wood screen, the door would open right into the room. In front of the door, standing against the opposite wall, there is one of the old-fashioned case clocks, and by the side of this shelves which seem to occupy the whole side of the room, and on which there is a display of “crockery” altogether out of proportion to the wants of a nonagenarian living on a total income of three shillings and a loaf a week. And beyond the crockery, right up in the corner, there stands the old high-backed Windsor arm chair, so situate that the occupant while enjoying the fire, and screened from the draught from the door, can command a complete view of the whole interior. Behind the screen and under the window, and stretching out into nearly the middle of the room, on a low stump bedstead, is the bed, with its clothing, as indeed are all the surroundings, remarkable for its cleanly and tidy appearance, one of the cleanest untidiest features of the scene being old Thomas Waite himself as you see him seated in the old armchair in his old Saxon smock, which covers the whole of his person, from his neck to below his knees, and which smock has been made white through successive washings. “I can't abear to be dirty; I like to be clean. my daughter washes me his clothes, you know, Sir, but I washes out the house once every week, if I am able, for I likes to keep myself clean and tidy,” are among the first and foremost assurances he will convey to you, and which, with pardonable pride, he will not hesitate to repeat. Preferring a box standing by the side of the foot of the bed, and which had the screen at the back, to the chair the old man had placed for me by the fire, we commenced our conversation, and which to me, for the sterling character of this old man which it served to bring out, was one of the most interesting I have for a long time enjoyed. “How long did you say you had been in receipt of relief?” “It was like this, you see, Sir. Mr. Sharps, of South Marston, had an old house here at Wanborough, and I was working at it, pulling it down. By the house there was a tree by which I could tell the time as well as I could by a clock. One day I went out to see what the time was by the tree. After looking at it, I said to myself, ‘it wants ten minutes to nunchin (luncheon) time yet.’ So I went back into the old house and began to fill my barrow again with the stones. All the roof, you know, Sir, had been got off, and the windows and doors had been pulled out; there were only the walls and the big chimney stack at the end standing. I had only just begun to fill my barrow when, all of a sudden, the end wall and the chimney stack fell right on me. I knows no more of anything that happened after this than I was told, for one of the men who helped to get me out said he had to move a good many loads of stone before he could get at me. And then Mr. Thorne, directly he heard on’t, he got on a horse and rode off at once to Swindon for a doctor. Wasn’t that good on en? At last they got me out, but I don't know anything about it, for I was stunned. My head was fractured in three places; my shoulder was smashed; and this arm, you know, Sir, I haven't been able to use of any count since then. If it hadn't been for a large beam saving me I must have been smashed. I don't know nothing more than I was told what was done for more than a week afterwards, and I was so cut about that it was a long time before they could get my clothes off.” “Then it was in consequence of this accident that you had relief?” “Yes, that was it. But I never had any before.” “And your age at the time of the accident was-“ “Well, I was in my eightieth year then.” “And now you are in your ninety-second year. So that you have had relief just about twelve years?” “Yes, sir, that is just about it. But I never had any before then - that is only once, when I had the fever. And none of the family ever had any.” “Then up to your eightieth year you kept on regularly at work, and earned your own maintenance?” “Yes, sir, regularly. And every year I went mowing. I had taken a cut of grass that very year, just before the accident, and I was put about mainly because I was obliged to gie it up.” The foregoing is no imaginary conversation, but is a faithful report of what took place between the writer and one Thomas Waite in his humble cottage in Berrycroft Row, Wanborough, as recently as 17th of January, 1888, and which is worthy of being put on record for more reasons than one. Thomas Waite is a man worth knowing, for the reason that we are better for knowing him, and feel all the better and stronger after having had a talk with him, although he has never been anything better than an agricultural labourer all his life, and is now subsisting on three shillings and a four- pound loaf of bread per week, allowed him by the Guardians of Highworth and Swindon Union. In writing a slight sketch of the old man as I found him, I have purposely commenced it with my question as to how long he had been in receipt of relief, for it brought out in a remarkable manner a trait in the old man's character, in the possession of which any man might feel proud. The strategy he exhibited in answering the question is admirable in its conception. That he was in receipt of relief from the Guardians of the Poor there was no denying. But the first and foremost object he had to prove was that he was no pauper - that it was only when in his 80th year he was stricken down, and laid at death’s door (after he had taken some mowing as usual), that he had received relief. He could not allow it to be said he had been in receipt of relief for the past twelve years, although he is now in his ninety-second year, until he had explained how the matter had been brought about. All honour, I say, to such a man. who is there who has had experience as the Guardian of the Poor, and has been brought into contact with every conceivable artifice, trickery, and deception, supported by the most bare-faced and audacious lies, to obtain relief for undeserving persons, who will not be ready to exclaim: "O, that there were more like this old man, Thomas Waite, who was determined never to lose his character as a man, and fewer of those who are ready to exhibit themselves as paupers, and to trade on, and make a market of, their simulated distress - who are always ready to plead poverty that they may escape the necessity to work?" Having heard of old Thomas Waite, and that he had been living at Wanborough all his time, I resolved on paying him a visit, in the hope of being able to add to my “Wanborough Notes” thereby. And in this I was not disappointed, for I found him to be a bright and intelligent old man, in the possession of all his faculties, and so ready with both eyes, ears, and tongue, as to make conversation with him quite easy, and, in fact, a pleasure. I found him “at home,” and quite ready for a chat. Knocking at his cottage door (which, I would mention, is not many yards from the main road which runs from Stratton to Wanborough, at the cross roads which run, that on the left to Horpit, Earl’s Court, and Bourton, and on the right in the direction of Swindon, Berrycroft Row, where Waite’s cottage stands, being situate on this latter road, within a few yards of a public-house, known as “The Cross Keys”), I heard him instantly rise from his chair and walk across the room to the door, which he opened. I may say we were at once at home, for there was that happy smile playing on his countenance which at once put things right between us and established confidence. “I have come to have a little chat with you, if you will allow me,” I said. “May I walk in?” “O yes. Take a chair by the fire, sir,” Waite promptly answered, as he seated himself in his arm chair in the corner and pointed to the grate, in which there were the remains of a few sticks, which were still fluttering in a state of ash after the desperate effort in which they had been engaged in “making the kettle boil.” “I was just making myself a drop of tea.” I begged the old man not to allow my visit to interfere with his brew, but to proceed at once with the preparation of his meal. “It won’t signify if I do wait a bit; it don’t take me long to get my meals ready,” Waite replied, as he looked round, with a smile on his face, on the round three-legged table which was standing at his elbow, and on which there was a teapot, part of a loaf of bread, and a plate with butter. Having made a second fruitless attempt to induce him to proceed of his meal, for, having requested me to be seated, he brought his arms to the front, and having interlaced the fingers of one hand into those of the other, he assumed a position of “attention” with an amount of firmness which at once ordered me to “proceed,” and I was in consequence driven to business. “I have come over from Swindon to have a little chat with you about Wanborough.” “I’ve been expecting you. You want to know about Warnage?” “I do. But surely you do not know me? I have no recollection of having ever seen you before.” “Oh, yes. I know you very well; and I was told you were coming to see me. I can tell you all about it, for I recollect the place well. A man told me you had been enquiring about me, and if I could recollect when the house was at Warnage.” “Your sight, hearing, and speech are all right, as I now know. And your recollection-?” “That's right too. I can recollect things when I was a bit of a boy.” I know not whether it was the happy assurance he felt that he could recollect, or whether it was in consequence of my having any doubt on such a matter, but as the old man made the last remark I could not help noticing a twinkle in his eye, or the smile which passed over his features, the quickened play around his mouth, or the playful twitches of his fingers as they seemed to struggle to get the hands closer into lock, and to hug the pit of the stomach with greater unction. “I was the first to take the news to church on the Sunday morning that Wells had shot May. And directly I had told on’t they were all round me like a fair.” “Do you know what year it was in?” “No, I know nothing about the year. But I was a main big boy; and I mind very well that I was driving plough. Perhaps I might have been fourteen or fifteen years old at the time. But ‘twas just like a fair when I told ‘em about it at church. Mr. Wells was at church too that morning. And the people said he walked about his pew like a mad man.” “Fourteen from ninety-two, and there remain seventy-eight. This would have happened, then, seventy seven or seventy-eight years ago. And you recollect it well?” “Yes; that's about it. Recollect it well! Why, ‘twas like a fair. ‘twas found out like this: Mr Hewer's cowman was going along to the stalls, when he seed a candle burning in the house, and so he went and looked in the window, and there he saw May dead, just as they that had shot ‘en left ‘en. But I can recollect afore that. That wasn't the first murder at Warnage, you know. A son shot his father there afore that. After shooting on ‘en he wrapped his body up in a sheet, and then laid ‘en across his horse, in front of the saddle, and carried ‘en up on to Hinton Downs and throwd ‘en down a well there.” “And you recollect that?” “No. I can't recollect the thing itself, but I can recollect a woman who met the son on the horse, with his father in front on ‘en, going towards the Downs. ‘twasn't known for a long time what had become of the father - not until one day, when the shepherd went to the well to draw some water for his sheep, when he draw’d up a man's leg in the bucket. Young Iles went and seed the leg and sed he could identify it as his father’s by the buckle on the shoe. Why, in course he could,” added the old man in a somewhat sarcastic manner, “for he put ‘en down there. They’ve called the place ‘Iles’s Hole’ ever since.” “Have you been living here long alone?” “I don't live altogether alone. My grandson comes over from Coate every night, and sleeps upstairs. I have had my bed down here only a few weeks. It was thought that in the dark nights and mornings I might fall downstairs, and so it was brought down here.” “Yes! My wife died the 9th June, 1886. She was as good a partner as ever a man had. ‘Tis eighteen months since she left me.” “No; she was not ill long. She was taken with a sickness, and never got over it. She was as good a wife as any man ever had.” Here the old man leant forward in his chair, and began to rake the few smouldering embers together in the grate. And there was a perfect stillness for a few moments, which was only broken by my asking about his family. “I have only one son living. He is in Australia, and I haven't heard from him for a long time. My other two sons were killed in America. My youngest daughter lives at Coate, and two others live up by London. I don't hear from them very often - haven't heard from them for a long time, and none of ‘em are able to help me much.” “Then the three shillings and a loaf of bread the Guardians allow you is all you have to live on?” “Yes, that's all. But I don't owe any man a penny. I'd rather die than owe anyone a penny.” “And out of that there is the rent of the cottage?” “Yes. Three pounds a year. And then there's my club money - a shilling a month - threepence a week.” “Your club money! A shilling a month?” I exclaimed in astonishment. “I always pays that,” he answered promptly. “It helps to get me a bit of clothing and firing. I don't know what I should do without the club. The club is held up at the Vicarage.” “No, I can't walk far, and the weather hasn't been very good for getting out lately. But I always tries to go to Church on Sunday.” At this point of our conversation the old man lapsed for a moment or so into a meditative mood as he cast his eyes on flickering embers in the grate and then there came, like a whisper from the soul:” I likes to go to a place of worship at least once on the Sunday.” “Yes! It be a good mile from here up to the church, and it takes me from an hour and a half to two hours to walk it. ‘Tisn't quite so far by a near cut across the fields. But there be they terrible stiles: I can't manage they now, and so I always goes round by the road.” “No. I have never had many masters. And I have never lived farther away from Wanborough than Bishopstone, either as man or boy. My master was generally ready before my year was up to hire me on again, and I was generally willing to stay on.” “You cannot provide many comforts or luxuries out of your three shillings a week,” I remarked. “No, not many,” the old man replied, “but I can get some bread and a drop of tea, and sometimes a bit of salt butter. And I don't owe any man a penny. I'd rather die than do that.” “Meat you cannot have often.” “No, not often. I had a bit of bacon about three weeks ago. But I don't complain; I'm thankful I don't owe any man a penny.” I need not pursue our conversation in this direction any farther, for I hope to utilise it for another purpose, and as an assistance to me in my Notes on Wanborough. Indeed, I have quoted what I have, rather to show, than for any other purpose, how this old man, in his ninety-second year, is in the possession of all his faculties, as he sits in his lonely cottage, waiting calmly and patiently for the visitor who comes to all our homes, sooner or later, and takes away with Him rich and poor, young and old, alike - those who have maintained a blameless life and an honourable career, notwithstanding that they have never aimed at being anything more than agricultural labourer, giving up their best efforts, their most generous help, and the best of their lives for the small reward which falls to the share of their class, as well as those who have abused every opportunity, and scoffed at every mercy. And yet I cannot bring my account of my visit to the old man to a close without saying that I felt all the better for having met with this genuine old man, and talked with and watched him, and read his thoughts, and felt certain that we are good and happy in proportion as we can feel like him - able to look back on a life honourably and usefully spent; a life sanctified by honest labour; the labour of the fields, if you will - a drudgery which meets with the scantiest of all rewards it may be; but a life to which his destiny had called him, and in the living of which there was as much honour and happiness to be won as there is in the lives of those who are called to high positions and distinguished careers. No man ever struggled with greater pride to prove that he was descended from someone who “came over” with the conqueror, or that he was descended from a stock altogether superior to that of Adam, than did this old man, to have it clearly understood that he did not get “parish pay” until he had been crushed almost to death's door by no end of loads of stones and bricks falling upon him in his eightieth year, as he was engaged in his daily duty of earning daily bread. And the man who could do that is a brave man, and well worth knowing. Too often does it fall within our experience to find men, and women, too, hastening to make themselves paupers, and supporting their simulation of poverty, distress, and wretchedness by every artifice in their power, in order that they may get “relief”. But here we have a case where “relief” has been given without the recipient being a pauper. The lives of too many of our poor maybe likened to a long, narrow and rough lane, all down hill, with a Workhouse at the bottom, towards which they slouch through many of their days, and which they enter as their haven of rest. But there are, happily, those among even the very poor who, although their eyes may have become dimmed and their hands and bodies trembling through age, can yet preserve the smile which is the index to the conscience, and tells of peace of mind and happy contentment - the rich, ripe mellowness of an honourable old age, and whose joy and privilege it most assuredly will be to receive the glad greeting, “well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things.” On the following day (Wednesday) I met with several persons at the board-room at Stratton who had known Thomas Waite for many years, one of them having employed him some years before his accident, and they all spoke of him as being an honest old man, and a good labourer. To their honour, be it said, the Guardians, on the circumstances being explained to them, unanimously resolved to increase the old man's pay a shilling a week, making it four shillings and a loaf of bread. And yet, how hard at times must that old man have found it to live. he had spent at least seventy years in one unceasing and unchanging round of labour, and had brought up a family of seven children, never probably at any time receiving more than the scantiest of weekly wage - from seven to nine shillings a week, probably. And yet it was a happy old age he was passing through - a happiness not made up out of luxuries and bodily comforts, but the happiness of a life honestly and honourably spent, and the reward of the conscience at peace with God, and void of offence to man. So far as I could see and hear, the old man's life had been spent with the wolf not very far from the door. But it had been honourably and honestly spent as a duty he owed to the world in which he lived. And this spending of the strength of his manhood was the glory of his old age when he could no longer take a cut of grass to mow, or even tackle “they terrible stiles,” but could only feel happy and contented, and proud that he didn't owe any man a penny. WILLIAM MORRIS 10, Victoria Street, Swindon